Monday, March 25, 2013

The latest book
that I read is Fishing for Stars by Bryce Courtenay. Goodreads link is located
here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8389940-fishing-for-stars I am no longer
going to put spoiler alerts in the title of my entries on books, from now on,
if you want to read a book review by me, you are reading at your own risk. You have
been warned.

When I took this
book out of my cupboard (I had bought it last year and it had been lying in my
cupboard collecting dust since then) and read the description, I was a bit
hesitant to read the book thinking it would be really boring as the description
sounded so boring. But then I thought to myself that I must’ve seen something
in it if I bought it (I am very picky in choosing books) so I must give it a
try with an open mind. It is a decision that I do not regret because this
turned out to be an excellent book.

Unfortunately I had
the exact same luck with thisbook that I
had with the previous two books that I read. This book is a freakin sequel!!! It has a prequel and this book is its sequel. Its
like sequels are coming after me or something, LOL. However, thankfully I did
not experience the usual problem that one experiences with sequels. I did not
feel as if this book has a prequel nor at any point did I experience the need
to want to read the prequel. All the characters were so well introduced and
well formed that you felt like you actually know these people, as if they are
your friends or your relatives or your neighbours or somebody to you.

Bryce Courtenay
is a South African author who has lived most of his life in Australia. I was
reading his mini-biography on Goodreads and turns out that he has lived a very
eventful and colourful life with quite unusual and unique experiences. I believe
this is something that reflects in his work as even in this book the characters
have lived colourful lives with unusual and unique experiences.

This happens to
be one of those books that a person really learns from. Even though the book
itself may be a work of fiction, it consists of many factual items in it. Reading
this book taught a lot about the Yakuza, which is the Japanese mafia and how
they operate. You get to learn about their hierarchy, their focus on extreme discipline
and obedience, how extreme punishments are carried out for the most minor of
mistakes and the decision making process. Japanese culture is really explored
in detail, especially how complicated gender roles are in Japanese society and
the complex rules and regulations surrounding honour.

We even learn about
environmental efforts in Tasmania and how the war in East Timor really impacted
the environment there due to underhand government dealings and what efforts
were undertaken in order to preserve the environment and protect the natural
habitat of varies species that live in the region.

This book
revolves around a guy, Nicolas Duncan who is an old guy and a former soldier
who served during the Second World War who has made a lot of money in the
shipping business and living a quiet and assuming life on a small island in Australia.
This book is written in an autobiographical style as we are reading the memoirs
that Nicolas Duncan has written about his life after the Second World War and
the two ladies in his life and how they both, at the end had made an agreement
with each other to share him yet the two ladies have their rivalries calling
each other Princess Plunder and Green Bitch behind each other’s backs.

One of those
ladies is Anna, whom Duncan met when she and her father were escaping the Japanese
invasion illegally on a boat. The boat had shipwrecked with Anna being the sole
survivor. Many years pass in between after which Anna and Duncan reunite where
we learn that Anna is a heroin addict and a shrewd businesswoman with a very
keen eye for business and an obsession for money, making her a multi
billionaire many times over. And it is through Anna that we learn about Japan as
Anna had lived part of her life in Japan plus she and Duncan went on a long
trip to Japan where it turns out that Duncan’s friend since the past 25 years
is actually the head of the Japanese Yakuza.

The second lady
is Marg. Marg is a navy admiral’s widow with two children. Marg and Duncan
first met when Duncan was in the armed forces and then separated when Marg got
married. We learn about the Tasmanian environmental struggles through Marg as
Marg is very passionate about the environment. She is a member of the Tasmanian
Green Party and a member of parliament and a vocal advocate for protecting the natural
habitats of frogs and orangutans.

In conclusion,
it is a very interesting book. Written in memoir style, it follows the diverse
and unique lives of three very interesting, diverse and unique individuals.

Friday, March 22, 2013

When I initially
started my blog back in December, I thought to myself, “What the hell am I doing
starting a blog, I have like no freakin’ thing to write about, what the hell am
I getting myself into”, so it is with that feeling that I asked a friend of
mine to suggest a topic for me to write on, and he suggested to me that I should
write about why people like these Indian TV serials so much. Well that topic
just got buried amongst my list of possible topics plus I just never came about
to writing on this topic either. Well today the topic has been revived as it
was dug out of its grave and subsequently resurrected. So here it is.

Indian TV
serials are very popular in my country. They have declined in popularity since
the past several years due to the arrival of good quality locally made
television serials plus Turkish TV serials which are dubbed in Urdu. Indian TV
serials are pure insanity. Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t have anything
against India or Indian people, but I am sorry to say, these TV serials are
insane. And Monday to Friday (or now Monday to Saturday and schedules have changed)
I get a dose of them, whether I like them or not, so I would say that I do
enough to spit out an article on it.

Firstly, they
have so much jewellery, all the time dressed up in makeup and jewellery like it
is nobody’s business. The people can be facing tough financial problems to the
extent that they have had to sell off their furniture and their other personal
belongings and have been forced to shift from their huge mansion which was
spread over acres into a one room home, and yet the makeup and the jewellery
will remain intact as it is. The clothes even remain as expensive. And what is
even more interesting is that they even go to sleep with all that makeup and
jewellery. I wonder how they do that, jewellery can be very uncomfortable in your
sleep. Even when conducting the household chores the jewellery remains intact.

Money is a big
issue in the shows too. Gives people a glimpse of how the elite class lives. The
elite class, to many, appears to be very fascinating and very interesting. All of
the individuals portrayed in the Indian TV serials belong to the elite class. Their
homes are mansions with mega sized rooms. Nobody seems to be living in an
apartment or a normal sized house at all. Nobody seems to have a job either. Everyone
is running some kind of a mega super sized business which is worth millions
upon billions upon trillions of rupees. And on top of it, the business keeps on
expanding. They are always meetings, new contracts to sign, new projects to
begin, sites to visit. And what exactly does their business deal with? That forever
remains a mystery. Apparently mystery businesses bring in more money than a
bank has.

They all have
the same theme too, which is family politics. It is rare where a family will
get along with each other, it has families riddled and plagued with politics. Personally
if you ask me, if you stuff so many people under one roof to the extent that
there is four generations of a crapton of people living under one roof,
politics is ensured. Anyways, even in the politics, there is one conspirator
whose job it is to plot and plan and poke their nose where it doesn’t belong
and tries to make everyone’s lives impossible. And there will be someone who
will behave like the “goody two shoes” so to speak, who is always trying to
solve all the politics related issues that are going on.

This is my
favourite part. How to be mean to your daughter in law. If you want to like be
really mean to your daughter in law, exclude her from housework in the sense
that ban her from carrying out any housework. Instead of being happy that they
no longer work, they will cry and scream and beg you to let them do the
housework to the extent that they’ll say they’ll take any punishment but this. Personally
I don’t see how reducing a person’s duties and responsibilities are punishment.
Well, I was discussing this very issue with someone and she told me that it
signifies a lack of importance, so I don’t know. Maybe it is lack of
importance, but this just never fails to amuse me. Mean mother in law is
yelling at daughter in law, “from today you will not wash the dishes” or “from
today you will not put the food on the table” and then the daughter in law is
begging to be allowed to continue to wash the dishes or put the food on the
dining table.

It must be for
these reasons that these insane television serials manage to rake up so much
appeal....

Monday, March 18, 2013

Now with this book I ended up having the same
bad luck that I had with the book that I read before this one, it happened to
be part of a series of books, the book I picked up being part a sequel. The only
difference is that the previous book I read happened to be Book 2 while this
one happened to be Book 5. I will make the exact same rant that I made in my
previous book review, will it kill the publisher to simply write on the cover
that the book is part of a sequel or a series. I hate picking up books that are
in the centre of the series. Again, I cannot say how accurate my review is
going to be as when you unfortunately pick up a book which happens to be in the
middle of the sequel you do not get any background information or introduction
of any sort regarding the characters so it is only when you are half way
through are you actually in a position to pinpoint who is who and recognize the
relationships each character holds with the other characters involved.

Anyways, to the
book. Steve Berry is a well known best selling number one author, international
and New York Times, who writes thriller books. Even though he has a few stand
alone books most of his books belong to the Cotton Malone series, a series out
of which the book being discussed today happens to be the fifth installment.

Not only was
this book a thriller, it was also historical fiction. Historical fiction is a
genre that I really like and in the case of this book, the historical fiction
of this book especially fascinated me as it revolved around Napoleon and I personally
have been very fascinated by European history, having studied it in my O
Levels. In the book I got to learn about Napoleon’s coding system of sending
messages to people based on texts, his stance on war and debt, how he ended up
selling Louisiana to the Americans and about his time in exile and possible
causes of death. Unfortunately, as it happens to be the case with all books of
historical fiction, the authenticity and the accuracy of the information given
is unknown. It is very likely that everything I read on Napoleon just happened
to be products of the author’s imagination, who knows.

Cotton Malone,
an agent with the US State Department, is on assignment in Copenhagen, Denmark
along with a special agent, Sam Collins. They are on the case of a mysterious
organization called the Paris Club. It is like one of those Illuminati type
organizations, having the top world financial “big guns” amongst their group of
members. The belief of the Paris Club is that whenever a society is facing
unrest in terms of a war or the threat of terrorism, financial transactions
shall be carried out in such a way that if you have the knowhow, you easily end
up in millions, if not billions. The leader of the Paris Club even tried to
carry out a few 9/11 style attacks on some historical Parisian monuments in
order to achieve this aim but the French air force managed to prevent that from
happening, they acted at the right time.

A individual in
the centre of this whole conspiracy is Lord Ashby. Everyone wants him, in the
sense that everyone is like after this guy. Cotton Malone wants him because the
American government thinks that he can lead them to a wanted terrorist. Cotton
Malone’s friend Henrik wants him as Henrik thinks Lord Ashby hired the person
who killed his son. Eliza, founder of the Paris club, thinks Lord Ashby is a
trusted member but actually he was a traitor following his own agenda.

In conclusion,
the only drawback that I found about this book is that it happens to be part
five of a series of books. Other than that, it is excellent. Backstories to the
characters are given about the characters in such a way that you can tell that
this is why this person is like this today. And the book is loaded with so much
conspiracy that is like one conspiracy appears to be coming to a close, three
more appear. When I was done reading the book, I actually took time to think
about all the conspiracy. This book really makes you think. And it is very well
written. And if European history and/or Napoleon are areas of interest for you,
then that is an added bonus.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Education is
something that I feel very strongly about and yet, surprisingly, if my memory serves
me correctly, this is the very first blog entry with regards to education. They
might be many more blog entries on education in the future, so please bear with
me.

Education is one
cause that is very near and dear to me. Basically
education for all. Education is a cause that is very near and dear to my heart
and a cause that I feel very strongly and passionately for. Education is a
basic right of every human being, unfortunately education is instead taken as a
privilege for the selected few. Or we think education is just “job skills” or
something that is only done if you want a high flying job or it is something
that is done for “time pass”. Yes, they are many many people who understand and
realize the importance of education, but at the same time there are those who
do not realize its importance and give it weird labels similar to the ones I
just mentioned. And those who think education is a pointless privilege.

In my opinion, education is the best thing that a person can give another
person. The best thing that a parent can give their kid. The best opportunity a
human being can be provided with. Because education sets you up for life. Yes,
education opens many doors for you employment/job wise. But education has many
other hidden benefits also. It is a weapon, it is a tool. Your family will
treat you differently if you have education, because they know you have
something to fall back on. You are less likely to be abused or denied your
basic rights if you have education, because your education can protect you. If
you have fallen upon hard times, who is most likely to be employed, the
educated or the uneducated? Education gives you credibility. Education means
better healthcare hygiene practices. Education means more opportunities for the
next generation.

Usually when I am asked what my dream is, I say it is to get a PhD and become a
lecturer. But in fact, my very true dream is something else. It is to open an
organization that provides free education to those who are denied this
opportunity otherwise. I even thought of the slogan for the organization.
Thought I'd steal, or should I say, borrow the Kuwait Fund's dialogue,
"Helping people to help themselves", LOL. I realize that undertaking
will be no easy task because you literally need like a crapton of resources in
order to be in any position to undertake such a project, plus there is a huge
planning process is quite intensive. Despite these hurdles, this is a project that
I would simply love to undertake this project. It is very essential.

No country can
survive without education. There are examples internationally where fixing an
education system and making it accessible to every single citizen has turned
around the future of not only of the country itself, but also improved the
quality of life of every single citizen, and not just on the economic front,
but otherwise also.

Why am I so
passionate about education, you ask? It is because I myself was denied the
opportunity to study despite having two university educated parents. I wanted
to go to university, parents said no. Finances were not playing a role here,
they could cough up the money to pay for it and it wasn't like they were being
stingy with their money either. It was because they simply saw no point in it.
My mom would say, “You learn nothing new after 10th grade” and, “So you spend a
few years at university. Then what?” and, “Study study and go crazy”. I am a
university graduate. It was a hard and difficult road for me. I had to fight
lack of opportunity at every step. I had my going to university stopped even
five times. And at one time my dream was to one day walk on a university
campus, carrying my books walking to my first class. Lack of opportunity was so
strong that this seemed like an impossible dream to fulfil. Literally
impossible. This is the reason why education is a cause that is so near and
dear to me.

They say that
when something is denied to you or taken away from you, do you learn its true
value and only then do you begin to appreciate it. That is exactly what
happened to me. I used to be your typical school hating angry kid who wanted to
grab a lighter and set fire to their textbooks. It was only until the
opportunity to study was being denied to me did I realize its importance to the
extent that I now strive to become an education activist.

Education is the
way forward. It is the thing of the
future. The world cannot prosper or survive without education any longer.

There is a local
news channel which is doing a strong campaign for education, highlighting
people who have turned their lives around due to education and highlighting the
improvements that are needed in the education system. Anyways, we have
elections coming up in May, and with regards to that, I want to leave you with
the dialogue that they say with regards to the elections, “Vote For Education!”

Monday, March 11, 2013

As I have
already mentioned a few blog posts ago, poetry is not my thing, however I still
have two favourite poems that I enjoy and that I feel really “hit home”. I have
already shared one of those poems a few blog posts ago. Today I thought I should
share the second one of those two poems. This one is entitled, “The Road Not
Taken” by Robert Frost.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

This poem really
shows conformity. We all live our lives
according to one set path. Everyone’s lives follow this one set path. And we
just follow this set path instead of breaking away and doing our own thing
because that is not what is usually done. Whether it is fear, or the
possibility of failure, or the possibility of following victim to society’s ridicule
or simply not wanting to be different; whatever the reason is, we just tend to
shut up and look around us to see what the people around us are doing and we
just do that. We loose ourselves and our own individuality in this process.

My most favourite
line in this poem is the last one which says, “I took the one last travelled and
that has made all the difference”. That is one of my most favourite quotations
even and this is the main reason why this poem appeals to me. It represents a
lot. Innovation. Dreaming. Thinking out of the box. Rebellion. So much. Breaking
away and doing your own thing is always associated with rebellion and rebellion
is always associated with bad things. But actually doing your own thing is a good
thing. Look, if nobody took the road less travelled we’d still be in the stone
ages. It is because some random cave dude innovated do we have fire. Or someone
thought out of the box that we have the wheel. Or modern day things that we now
consider a necessity without life can’t be spent, like the internet, the
computer, the cell phone. Taking the
road less travelled is so essential.

The reason why
this poem holds position of being my second favourite. It tells you to be
yourself and do your own thing. And how that is very important and beneficial.